Windows Defender is a new security program that helps to protect your PC from spyware and other unwanted software. This program works on Windows XP & Vista. You may encounter various issues with the Microsoft Windows Defender application. This article explains you the various issues with the troubleshooting procedures.

At the startup of Windows XP, you may see an error that says "Unable to Start Windows Defender service". This issue occurs, if some of the registry entries are corrupted. Restarting the service from the service console may also prompt the same error.

To resolve this issue, you may need to uninstall and reinstall the Windows Defender. Follow the below mentioned steps:

This will uninstall Windows Defender. You can download and reinstall the updated version from the following link:

http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/software

Unable to Uninstall Windows Defender in XP:

This issue happens due to corrupted DLL library. To resolve this error, download and run the Microsoft Installer Cleanup Utility. Download it from the following link:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/290301/

You can also try uninstalling the Windows Defender program by running the uninstall command option from Run.

Click Start, Type Run, and type the following:

msiexec /uninstall windowsdefender.msi /quiet /log uninstall.log NOTE: This method only works in Windows XP and is not applicable for Windows Vista.

Troubleshooting Code Errors with Windows Defender program:

While updating the definitions of Windows Defender automatically, you may experience different code errors. This is due to some setting in Windows update. Follow the steps mentioned below to resolve the same:

1. Click Start, All Programs, Windows Update.

If the update engine is taking you to Microsoft Update, you should change it to Windows Update.

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